Daily Tune-Up by Yehuda Berg

If you’ve been receiving these Tune-Ups for several years, you may at times find yourself saying, “I’ve read this lesson before!”

Even students who take classes at our Kabbalah Centres around the world find that many of the principles lead back to lessons that seem to be repeated.  

While acquiring new information can feel great and give us a rush, a true spiritual path is not about gaining more knowledge. It’s about achieving a level of consciousness that is applied to our lives and to our interactions with others.

The great kabbalist Baal Shem Tov would often travel throughout European cities teaching and helping people, and on one such occasion he had the choice of staying at the home of a kabbalah scholar or at the home of a thief.

You’d be surprised how many of the great sages were considered the least likely to succeed at the beginning of their journey.

In fact, it’s often the students who failed the most often who became truly righteous souls (tzadikim) and the leaders of their generation.

Their secret was: They knew that even if they failed over and over, their failures didn’t make them any less.

There is always Light in our failures because they put us one step closer to reaching our goal.

Rav Ashlag the founder of the Kabbalah Centre in 1922, revealed then something we can learn from now.

Ashlag wrote that the reason the Creator gave abundance to Abraham the Patriarch is because he always tithed.

Not only did he always give charity, but he gave of himself and his efforts 110% percent of the time, both to the people around him and to the Creator.

The Kabbalists remind us that even with our negativity, ego, selfishness… we are still always capable.

Sometimes the negative side creeps in and whispers, “Look at you, you’re selfish. You’re reactive. You’re only human. You can’t do it.”

It’s in moments like these, we need to speak to that voice and tell it, “I know I’m selfish. I know I can be reactive. But I still believe I can do anything. I still believe I can do more.”

A good indication that you’re on the right path is when you start to see more of your garbage. You start noticing the ego at play and how you allow it to take hold of you and in your interactions with others.

Seeing our garbage is never easy, but it’s what we do once we see it that makes all the difference.

Getting down, depressed or sad won’t help us to change it, so that’s a waste of time. On the other hand, we could feel grateful for having the clarity to see what it is we need to change so our lives can improve.

We are now in the week of Chanukah, when the energy of miracles is available in the cosmos, for us all to tap into if we make our connections and do our spiritual work.

One of the fastest ways to create blessings in our life is to step outside our comfort zone.

We may enjoy our comfort foods, our comfy couch and the comfortable bubble we create for ourselves to live in – but there’s only one problem with the comfort zone. Miracles don’t happen there.

A lot of people mistake freedom for being able to do whatever they want to do.
In reality, that’s slavery to the ego – to our selfish nature!
True freedom is experienced when we choose to take responsibility for those things that we need to do.  
Doing whatever we want to do keeps us bound in the chains of our own comforts and limitations.
Doing whatever we need to do breaks the chains and sets us free.

In order to choose unity, there must be diversity.

In order to choose certainty, there must be doubt.

In order to choose Light, there must be darkness.

It’s not about what you’re faced with. It’s about what you choose to do with it.

We are now in the week of Chanukah, one of the most joyous occasions during which all of us regardless of religion, race or any other creed, have full access to the energy of miracles. Right now, we can manifest blessings like no other time during the year – with the only contingency being that we really put in the effort to do our spiritual work.

So if all that is needed is the effort, it bears the question: How much is enough?